Marilyn Monroe’s $8.3 million former home in Brentwood could soon be demolished as legal battles between residents and the Los Angeles City Council have dragged out the process.
The council voted this week to delay a vote on whether the home’s current owners, Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank, can demolish the iconic residence to expand their own.
Milstein, heir to a real estate fortune, and Bank, a reality TV producer, bought it for $8.35 million last summer and hoped to demolish it to expand their current home, which sits on the lot next door.
In September, Councilwoman Traci Park introduced initial consideration of historically preserving the Spanish Colonial-style house, which would prevent the couple from tearing it down.
The motion has since been approved by the Cultural Heritage Commission, along with the city council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, but on Wednesday, Park requested that the vote be postponed due to ongoing legal challenges with the couple. wealthy
Marilyn Monroe’s $8.3 million Brentwood home could soon be demolished, as the Los Angeles City Council recently decided to delay a vote on the home’s fate.
Monroe, then the most recognizable woman on the face of the planet, lived in the Brentwood home for less than six months before dying at age 36 from a drug overdose.
Monroe, then the most recognizable woman on the face of the planet, lived in the Brentwood house for less than six months before her untimely death in 1962 from a drug overdose at the age of 36.
According to the Los Angeles Daily NewsPark said, “Following the recent court decision and pending litigation, as well as ongoing discussions between the City Attorney’s Office and the property owners, I would like to pursue the matter… for a good cause.”
In early June, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant issued a tentative ruling in favor of the city.
Last month, Milstein and Bank sued Los Angeles, alleging that collusion to mark the historic property prevents them from demolishing the house later this summer.
Lawyers for the couple filed a lawsuit accusing the city of violating codes and conspiring with third parties to speed up the process of marking the house whose current owners want to demolish it.
Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank bought the Monroe home for $8.35 million last summer and hoped to demolish it to expand their current home, which sits on the lot next door.
Monroe bought the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home on Helena Drive in the early 1960s for $75,000.
A demolition permit was initially issued for the single-family home, but now the owners say a “spasm of activity” among city staff has led to the start of the landmark designation process, preventing them from moving forward with their plan. .
Although the house is not visible from the street (Fifth Helena Drive), fans of the late icon often stop by anyway to lay flowers and try to look beyond the hedges to see the single-story, 2,900-square-foot home.
Monroe bought the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in the early 1960s for $75,000.
This was the first home she had alone after the end of her third marriage to playwright Arthur Miller.
The American actress, model and singer was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood home in August 1962.
The cause of death was determined to be acute poisoning by barbiturates, a type of depressant.
Monroe poses outside her home in 1962, it was the only property she ever bought and owned.
The couple, as well as some other neighborhood residents, are convinced that designating the house as a landmark will only worsen their tourism problem.
The property has been modified many times over the decades. It is believed to have been first built in 1929, but it was already a very different house when Monroe bought it.
Milstein and Bank have argued that the house has undergone another near-total transformation since Monroe occupied it.
“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day in the house, not a piece of furniture, not a piece of paint, not a rug, nothing,” the lawsuit said, according to the New York Times.
The house has changed hands at least 14 times since Monroe’s death and has been the subject of numerous renovations about which the city “has taken no action regarding the now supposed ‘historic’ or ‘cultural’ status of the house,” the lawsuit states.
In September, Councilwoman Traci Park introduced initial consideration of historically preserving the Spanish Colonial-style house, which would prevent the couple from tearing it down.
The bed in which Monroe overdosed on August 4, 1962
“All of these backroom machinations were in the name of preserving a house that in no way meets any of the criteria for a ‘Historical Cultural Monument,'” the lawsuit said.
Milstein has previously complained that Monroe fans wander the streets of the upscale community, ringing her doorbell and asking to be let in so they can see the late movie star’s former home.
The couple, as well as some other neighborhood residents, are convinced that designating the house as a landmark will only make their tourism problem worse.
Since 2013, the city’s inspection program has marked the famous house as “potentially historic,” but at no point in these past 11 years has it merited the upgrade.